Of all professions, the oldest is among the most stigmatised by cinema. Sex workers do not carry much credo on the silver screen, especially in horror where they are almost always unsympathetic victims to whatever raving lunatic is wielding a knife this month. Don’t get me wrong, I have love for my slasher movies, but the gender politics and sexual politics of the genre often leave a lot to be desired. Sex workers face abuse and discrimination on a daily basis, especially in a society oft defined by entitlement. But, as with other groups marginalised by the mainstream, there have been some cinematic advances in recent years. Sean Baker’s Starlet gave the amateur porn industry a human heart and soul, while David Simon and George Pelecanos’ HBO series The Deuce continually investigates the relationship between the consumer and the consumed (even if James Franco’s presence remains a thorn in its side for many).

One of the slew of new Netflix ‘Originals’ – made in conjuncture with Blumhouse no less – represents another stride forward, illuminating the world of the ‘cam girl’. A thoroughly modern phenomenon, a cam girl performs live shows that are streamed by subscribers who are also afforded the opportunity to give ‘tips’ if they like what they see using a simplistic form of crypto-currency. Existing in the hazy, vitriolic and manipulative world of the internet, it’s an arena fraught with risk and frustration for those who choose to make a living this way, but it also has its own rules and culture. Loyal fans are encouraged to buy their favourite girls gifts from their Amazon wish lists, or even send them baked goods in the mail. Everyone involved gets something out of the transaction. Nudity and sexual activity isn’t even a prerequisite… but for those seeking bigger tips it’s among the surest ways of getting a bonus.

Cam focuses on Alice (Madeline Brewer), a young woman who goes by the online handle ‘Lola_Lola’ and who already has a loyal base at the opening of the film. The savvy screenplay by Isa Mazzei gets us on the hook early as Alice’s performance is seemingly gatecrashed by a troll trying to bribe her into genital mutilation. It is in fact a set-up, culminating in a moment of shock that readies the viewer for the dark turns to come. It also neatly sets up both Alice’s passion for performance, her ambition to break the community’s Top 50 girls, and establishes one or two die-hard fans; perfect red herrings for later.

With Alice’s world established – complete with how she hides her chosen profession from her mother (Melora Walters); neatly broaching how engrained shame is in the sex industry – Cam sets about its paranoiac central premise. Alice’s account appears to have been hacked as an imposter starts broadcasting in her place. This doppelgänger, posing as Lola_Lola, is indistinguishable from the real Alice, and is prepared to do anything to dominate the rankings. And its not just in Alice’s head; she illustrates the impossible double to some colleagues during a live stream. Something bizarre is going on, and it threatens to drive our heroine over the edge.

Alice’s double feels somewhat reminiscent of the surreal blending of nightmare TV and reality found in David Cronenberg’s Videodrome, and the ripest reading is that it represents a version of Alice that is prepared to go the distance for her ambitions; the id made flesh. Her other self is without inhibitions, and as she rises up the ranks, there’s a streak of projection and wish fulfilment about the scenario, even as the real Alice reacts with horror and aversion. Cam tries to be just as slippery as Videodrome with the practical mechanics of how the phenomena is happening. It aims for ambiguity – a popular choice in indie horror at present – yet it never really lands. The internal logic feels frustratingly questionable, even as it leads to a series of interesting and unsettling set pieces.

Far more insightful and contemplative are the observations Cam makes about the world it inhabits. The culture of trolling and its unwholesome psychological ramifications are probed, along with the unhealthier aspects of male fixation and objectification. Early in the film Alice is flattered to receive gifts, but acknowledges that even these (which include nipple tassels) are more for the pleasure of the giver than the recipient. Thoughtful they may be, but no gift in this scenario seems wholly altruistic. “Makes me feel like a lady,” she tells her friend, sarcastically.

With some dramatic licence (?) it seems as though a lot of these cam girls live close to one another, allowing for shared screen time without a Skype call. Through these interactions we also learn of rivalry between the girls, not least over repeat customers whose affections they vie for. Cam suggests a loss of empowerment occurring this way. One middle aged fan, Barney (Michael Dempsey), uses such jealousies to inflate his own self-worth, enjoying a sense of dominance. In turn, the girls can appear subservient to their fans, as men like Barney determine rank.

Madeline Brewer is the film’s anchor. She makes a living, breathing person out of Alice/Lola and her work is presented as a legitimate choice throughout – something she cares about and, when not judged by others, takes a great deal of pride in, even if the needs of the thriller determine that she go through the wringer for it. Notions of beauty as currency in these circumstances are legitimate, adding weight to some of the make-or-break choices Alice makes during the finale. While a continuing motif of mocked-up suicides is as much a comment on our lust for the forbidden or illicit as the torture-porn of Videodrome.

So while much of the doppelgänger material feels recycled from other sources too numerous to count, Cam excels by virtue of its fair depiction of an oft demonised subculture, and its Black Mirror-esque investigation of how sexuality is adapting to technology.

It’s an old truism that we communicate far more through our body language than we ever do verbally. How we carry ourselves. Our posture. The amount of eye contact we maintain. All of these things are indicators. Tells of the feelings we have and the feelings we’re trying to hide. Luca Guadagnino’s grand reimagining of Dario Argento’s Suspiria takes body language to its most fantastic conclusion; what if it were an actual language, and our very gestures and movements could become incantations all of their own? With the story set in an all-female dance company, this notion also allows for investigation into archetypes of feminine pose; to seduce, to threaten, to protect. And, perhaps involuntarily, the film becomes reflexive over how these poses are interpreted by a male writer and director. How they – and we – choose to receive them.

The bones of the original idea of Suspiria are here. It is set in a German dance academy in 1977. The academy is a front for a coven of witches. An American girl named Susie Bannion (Dakota Johnson this time) arrives just in time for a malevolent supernatural shitstorm. But by most other barometers Guadagnino and screenwriter David Kajganich have taken the core concept and used it as licence to explore their own ideas. It’s a bold new interpretation, the extremes of which are likely spurred on by the temptation to ‘outdo’ Argento but in a radically different way.

So where Argento battered you out of the gate, Guadagnino coyly lures you in with inference, rumour and disparate images that you’re invited to connect. A title card announces that the film is divided into six acts and an epilogue; advanced warning that this isn’t going to be a svelte little horror. Indeed, Suspiria circa 2018 runs to an intimidating 153 minutes; nearly an hour longer than its forebearer. There’s a shared false logic about horror than it is best administered in 90 minutes or less. That’s all well and good, but a film should be as long (or short) as it needs to be. Guadagnino’s Suspiria is a long film, but that’s to benefit the tone of the piece, which has more in common with the output of Polanski or Roeg in the 70’s than it does Argento.

This is a low sigh of a film, ably assisted by Thom Yorke’s breathy, ethereal score. Guadagnino presents it in the dead of winter and the palette is his coldest since I Am Love. The Markos Academy stands adjacent to the Berlin wall, and the political upheavals of the period touch the edges of the story like explorative fingers. Chiefly the wall brings in the theme of division, as within the academy a rift is growing; should the coven be steered by the reclusive Helena Markos (Tilda Swinton) or the more present and hands-on Madame Blanc (also Swinton). Elsewhere, a grieving psychotherapist named Dr. Josef Klemperer (Swinton again) starts his own investigations into the group, spurred on by the ravings of former dancer Patricia (Chloe Grace Moretz) who has been driven mad by her experiences.

With so many plates set spinning, this Suspiria aims to capture an itching unrest. The urge to investigate and the tensions of internal struggle are distractions from the status quo. Into this steps Johnson’s Susie; seemingly serene with her long ginger hair; pleasant but ambitious. Within days she has impressed Blanc to the degree that she will take the ‘protagonist’ role in the company’s signature dance. Named ‘Volk’, it is an emotionally and physically draining piece choreographed by Blanc herself. It is an expression of wartime female trauma which doubles as a dark and powerful incantation… but to what end?

While I don’t intend to spend the entire review zipping back and forth over the many differences between Argento’s film and Guadagnino’s, one of the more hilarious failings of the original is Argento’s clear disinterest in anything remotely dance related. His scenes of the students practising are woefully comical. Guadagnino, on the other hand, makes these scenes among the film’s most important. They are, simply, electric and Johnson takes to the demanding work with intense gusto. Can there be an Academy Award for Best Choreography? Damien Jalet’s contribution here is significant.

With its washed out tones, its setting and its themes of transformation, Guadagnino’s film recalls Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan; itself inspired in part by Suspiria. Art comes full circle. But as things progress, the spirit of Aronofsky’s more recent and divisive mother! comes to the fore. Similar to the way in which that film and Ari Aster’s celebrated Hereditary bedded you in and then ratcheted the stress levels, this Suspiria simmers for the longest time and then pointedly – jarringly – boils over. In the space of a year these three films form a loose and unintended trilogy. They are all films which veer into the hysterical, look the viewer right in the eye, and dare them to blink. Make no mistake, the final act of Suspiria in 2018 contains some crazy shit. You’ll be provoked to either cower or break out in laughter.

There’s a lot to unpack about the events of act six and the subsequent epilogue and discussion will certainly continue over the intentions here. Those discussions are innately wrapped up in plot spoilers I wouldn’t dare explore now as I encourage the brave and resilient among you to give this film a try. It is long. It is provocative (has Guadagnino been talking with Lars Von Trier?). But it is brimming with ideas and suggestions. All of these things it leaves with you to pick over and access to your own (dis)content. Which items are indulgences, which are folly, and which are the ones that truly resonate.

Which…?

Which?

Witch!

Score:

]]>https://thelosthighwayhotel.com/2018/11/17/review-suspiria-2018/feed/0SuspirithelosthighwayhotelRanked: The Coen Brothershttps://thelosthighwayhotel.com/2018/11/17/ranked-the-coen-brothers/
https://thelosthighwayhotel.com/2018/11/17/ranked-the-coen-brothers/#commentsSat, 17 Nov 2018 09:27:01 +0000http://thelosthighwayhotel.com/?p=8026Continue reading Ranked: The Coen Brothers]]>With The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs arriving on Netflix, it felt like time for a daunting career appraisal of the brothers Coen. Theirs is a cineliterate canon; a body of work in constant awe of past masters, yet imbued with their own inimitable style. Their reverence is transformed into the personal. Thanks to faithful work with the likes of cinematographers Roger Deakins and Bruno Delbonnel and composer Carter Burwell, you can always spot a Coen Brothers movie the moment you set eyes on one. This is a wholly biased ranking of their 18 feature films to date, and possibly not without controversy in its ordering. Something we’ll get to right out of the gate…

18. Raising Arizona (1987)

Revered by many as one of their best, this Tex Avery inspired tale of baby kidnapping has not aged particularly well. Though there’s plenty of nostalgia in seeing Nicolas Cage in his bottle rocket youth, the overall approach is far too cloying. There’s no doubt that the brothers evidence technical skill throughout, but that doesn’t quite make up for how irritating most of it is.

17. The Ladykillers (2004)

The brothers’ first foray into remake territory didn’t quite pay off. But in fairness, this isn’t as bad as its made out to be… some of the time. Tom Hanks’ only outright villainous role so far is worth the price of admission alone for its strangeness, and the supporting cast bring a lot to the table. That’s not always a blessing. Unfortunately, most of the good work is nullified by an insufferable Marlon Wayans.

16. Intolerable Cruelty (2002)

The other turkey from the Coens’ post-millennial wobble. Again, its worth stressing that there is a lot of good work present in Intolerable Cruelty. Their trademark humour is certainly in evidence. Still, you can’t shake the feeling that this is a salvage job. Tellingly theirs aren’t the only names on the script. A concerted effort to sell fool’s gold, certainly, but still it pales when compared to the real deal.

15. O Brother Where Art Thou (2000)

The unexpectedly popular soundtrack curated by T-Bone Burnett helped propel this pleasing farce, loosely inspired by the work of Homer. The digital colour-correction was the movie’s other big headline at the time, though the approach looks somewhat dated now. It was certainly influential; ensuring that a vast array of lesser movies made in the following years now also look similarly dated.

14. Burn After Reading (2008)

An itchy nihilistic giggle of a film. Appearing just a year after their big Oscar winner No Country For Old Men, Burn After Reading felt like reassurance that the Coens weren’t about to let the Academy go to their heads. This is about as squirrelly a piece of work as they’ve ever created, wrong-footing the viewer at every turn with dark glee.

13. True Grit (2010)

The Coens’ other big Western, and a remake to boot, True Grit is an absolute pleasure, not least thanks to the interplay between young Hailee Steinfeld and a particularly craggy Jeff Bridges. It also feels the influence of Steven Spielberg – on board as executive producer – as this is the most fancifully adventurous picture the brothers have made to date.

12. The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)

Something of a bomb on release, The Hudsucker Proxy has since grown something of a following and has been reappraised as an inventive and joyful entry in their canon. Pointedly in homage to the screwball comedies of the 30’s and 40’s, the film also keenly feels the creative presence of Sam Raimi (look out for the associated Bruce Campbell cameo). The rat-a-tat style isn’t for everyone, but give over to it and there are bags of fun to be had. A great New Year movie if you’re intending on staying in.

11. The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs (2018)

A bit of a hedged-bet placement, I’ll admit. We’ve not had the time yet to identify exactly where Buster Scruggs will land in the legacy of the Coens. Still, as it settles in the mind it feels as though the Netflix movie is already ripening, resplendent with great moments ready to be relived. There’s a gold streak here, bright as Tom Waits’ reverential ‘pocket’.

10. Blood Simple (1984)

This magnificent Texan noir debut is rough around the edges but in all the right ways. The first of their many bag-full-o-money yarns – and the movie that introduced Joel Coen to Frances McDormand; the two are married – Blood Simple is a firecracker worth the discovery or revisit. It’s recently been remastered, so you’ve got no excuse not to. It’s at this point that sequencing these films becomes incredibly difficult, showing their ability to reel off multiple masterpieces.

9. Hail, Caesar! (2016)

Time is going to tell on Hail, Caesar! which was met with a moderately muted response following their prior critical darling Inside Llewyn Davis. Here at The Lost Highway Hotel, the film is considered an unbridled joy. It is the duo’s most open love letter to the golden age of Hollywood, from Josh Brolin’s harangued fixer to that stunning musical number with Channing Tatum.

8. Miller’s Crossing (1990)

Probably should be higher… but as I say, sequencing gets tough here. The Coens’ superbly knotty gangster yarn is a cold stunner, stylised to the hilt, but so giving. Consider the legion of great performances on offer, from Gabriel Byrne’s weary strategist to Albert Finney’s dignified mob boss. The sequence depicted above is one for the ages.

7. Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

The Coens’ coldest proposition still has such a beautifully broken heart to it. Sexiest Man Alive Oscar Isaac plays the prideful title character; a folk singer in late 60’s New York at risk of alienating the few that remain close to him. A lost cat strings together the episodic narrative, but this is as fine a character portrait as you’ll find in recent years, and a quietly mournful tale from its creators.

6. Barton Fink (1991)

The writer’s block the brothers experienced on Miller’s Crossing manifested as this film and secured them the Palme D’Or at Cannes for their trouble. Barton Fink is arguably their strangest offering to date, prying into the life of the mind when other American auteurs of the time were taking similar steps to externalise the internal. Theirs is among the most successful and, in its hellish finale, offers the scariest depiction of hotel living this side of The Shining.

5. The Big Lebowski (1998)

A populist career peak, The Big Lebowski celebrates its 20th anniversary this year and has made a welcome return to cinemas around the country. Endlessly quotable and beloved enough to have a (literal) cult following, rumours of a sequel (official and otherwise) surface with regularity. But this one is likely best left as comedic lightning in a bottle.

4. A Serious Man (2009)

The Coens’ most personal film – and by extension also most pointedly Jewish – A Serious Man revisits the world they inhabited growing up in the late 60’s. In the process they give us a brightly coloured existential nightmare. Casting cherished character actor Michael Stuhlbarg in the lead is the masterstroke and then there’s that final shot. An under-seen stunner.

3. No Country For Old Men (2007)

By 2007 Joel and Coen had suffered some reputational damage following the commercial and critical bomb of The Ladykillers. They also took the first ‘break’ of their careers – a whopping three years – only to return with this. A sparse, faithful adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s bleak crime novel; the less is more approach bagged them Oscar glory (in a HUGE year for great films) and gave the movie world Javier Bardem’s iconic killer Anton Chigurh. Classic.

2. Fargo (1996)

With the exception of Frances McDormand’s mild-mannered and heavily pregnant law officer Marge Gunderson – and arguably also her husband played by the great John Carrol Lynch – everyone in Fargo is an idiot. A comedy played deceptively straight, this is classic Coens territory; a tragedy of stupidity, so effectively deadpan that its possible to read it as wholly serious. The spin-off show is basically the best thing to happen to television this decade, also.

1. The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001)

The Man Who Wasn’t There is – frustratingly – probably the least seen Coen Brothers film, certainly among their masterpieces. Billy Bob Thornton is excellent as a 50’s barber who longs to be a dry-cleaner, involving himself in an inevitably haywire blackmailing plot that leads to accidental murder. Deakins’ black and white photography stuns repeatedly, but its the way in which the film grows funnier and funnier each time you return to it that lands it the top spot. It’s also slyly soulful, with a throwaway UFO motif planting a touching loneliness into the mix. I wasn’t convinced at first. It’s taken time. But it’s utterly perfect. Seek it out… and nurture it by returning every few years. It’s worth it.

The Coen Brothers have made Westerns before, and more than just the two ‘obvious ones’; the Texan noir of No Country For Old Men and their adventurous remake of True Grit. In truth the West has scored through much of their cinema which is resplendent with mythic characters and wild lawlessness. The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs – arriving straight-to-Netflix – is the purest distillation of these sensibilities to date. It is a portmanteau film that tells six separate stories, across the span of which much of the American experience is covered.

It is their longest film, running to 132 minutes, and was initially mooted to be a TV series (hence Netflix’s involvement). Collapsing the material into these disparate vignettes seems a wise choice on viewing. Most have what you might call a ‘downbeat’ ending, and if expanded to an hour a piece might not have fared as well. Still, as with most anthology films, there comes a sense of recurring frustration. Time spent in these small worlds is either too little or not enough.

Each part comes with a signature actor in the lead. For the titular “The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs” we have Tim Blake Nelson, perhaps most fondly remembered still for his part in the Coens’ O Brother Where Art Thou? That film is a good touchstone for his story, which is the most comedic of the six presented, deploying slapstick and musical theatricality before reaching the sting in the tale. Next up, in short order, is James Franco in “Near Algodones” in which the divisive leading man plays a bank robber who comes up against Stephen Root’s industrious teller. It’s the tallest of tall tales, and perfectly fine, but ultimately comes to feel like a short in service of a (admittedly good) punchline.

“Meal Ticket” is the darkest of the six, featuring a near silent Liam Neeson as a travelling man who exhibits a well-versed quadriplegic whose eloquent verse captures audiences for the smallest of change. By this point the film’s cumulative body count has been stacked high, tipping the viewer to the morbid strain of humour Buster Scruggs is capable of. This section of the film pries damningly into the capitalist bent of the American dream, crowbarring open the topic of slavery and the manipulation of the misfortunate through creative metaphor. By now it appears clear what the Coen Brothers are getting at. America’s birth was not without laws… But it may well have been without justice.

Tom Waits carries “All Gold Canyon” almost wholly by himself, and its a joy to behold. His Prospector arrives in the most verdant of valleys to pan for gold, pursuing the location of a rich “pocket” with (seemingly) only his steed, an owl and a flighty deer to observe him. Like a mole he tears up the picturesque riverside and cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel works repeated miracles capturing his blight on the perfection of the land. The segment’s close sees peace return, underscoring how man interrupts the natural order of things.

The longest section follows and it is only in the aftermath that one realises how the film’s grim sense of humour remains alive and well in the title “The Gal Who Got Rattled”. Zoe Kazan plays Alice, setting out on the wagon trail for Oregon with the prospect of marriage at the end. In the main, however, her journey becomes something of a burgeoning romance with the well-meaning Billy Knapp (the superbly named Bill Heck). It is arguably the most interesting and rewarding of the sequences on offer, as the (relatively) extended running time allows for a greater development of character and understanding than found elsewhere. The Coens present frontier romance as something pragmatic, borne – in part at least – from necessity. It’s one of the least cynical things they’ve put to film… that is until the tale veers into more combative territory.

Things close on a positively spooky note with the Brendan Gleeson-starring “The Mortal Remains”. Evoking memories of the first hour of The Hateful Eight(aka the good bit), “The Mortal Remains” takes place within the claustrophobic interior of a stagecoach running ceaselessly through the night. Inside, a diverse set of characters ponder the complexity (or lack thereof) of the human condition. And while Gleeson is the scene’s biggest name, he is whole-heartedly upstaged by his travelling companions. Delbonnel adjusts the colour pallet to a mournful set of blues, suggesting a supernatural twist in the tale that the Coens leave dangling with ambiguous mirth. The book closes on The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs…

With their reticence to place works by major filmmakers in cinemas and the recklessness by which the service unapologetically buries even its finest creations, Netflix remains a curious contradiction on the changing face of filmmaking. And filmmakers have yet to work out how best to approach the platform. It has become a home for some notably poor offerings from significant voices, and just this year the likes of Duncan Jones and Jeremy Saulnier have ditched career lows on its endless streams of options. That Buster Scruggs was not initially intended to be a film makes it an outlier, but it certainly doesn’t keep company with the aforementioned failures. Indeed, within it are pieces that will sit comfortably beside the Coens’ best works. But still there is the sense of the scattershot about it.

Buster Scruggs may have the widest scope of their career (each theme aimed for is struck squarely), but the whole and the sum of its part are not the same deal. And with the tone ricocheting as fast as a bullet, it stands as their most uneven offering in a decade, even if the overall quality level doesn’t veer tremendously. Those changing colour schemes tell the tale best of all; that of all America. Diverse, contradictory, bound to violence and impossible to adequately contain.

Score:

]]>https://thelosthighwayhotel.com/2018/11/16/review-the-ballad-of-buster-scruggs/feed/1thelosthighwayhotelMinutiae: The Smile in Death Proofhttps://thelosthighwayhotel.com/2018/11/11/minutiae-the-smile-in-death-proof/
https://thelosthighwayhotel.com/2018/11/11/minutiae-the-smile-in-death-proof/#respondSun, 11 Nov 2018 17:30:38 +0000http://thelosthighwayhotel.com/?p=7995Continue reading Minutiae: The Smile in Death Proof]]>This week Ennio Morricone was reported to have taken potshots at Quentin Tarantino in an interview with claims that he called the director a ‘cretin’ whose movies are ‘trash’; something Morricone has since vehemently denied. Whether he did or not, it seemed like a viable time to take a look back at my favourite moment from the director’s spotted, oft-overpraised body of work. Ironically – or perhaps just contrarily – I’d point toward his most derided movie as my pick of the litter; 2007’s Death Proof, made in conjuncture with Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror and released as a gimmicky double feature under the Grindhouse umbrella.

Now, Grindhouse has a lot to answer for, not least a decade’s worth of lousy imitators who have mistaken a genuine fondness for 60’s and 70’s B-pictures for an excuse to glorify bygone stereotypes and social attitudes. See also the propensity for attempting (and failing) to make modern work look artificially aged. Adding grain and scratches to digitally shot work short-circuits the intention. It doesn’t compute and it looks dreadful.

Anyway…

Tarantino has evidenced a consistent magpie approach throughout his career; taking the work of his heroes and reconstituting it as something supposedly new. Were Morricone’s statement true, it would make for a blunt, almost unnecessary accusation. Tarantino’s output has always been clearly in homage to something-or-other, that is when he isn’t outright remaking cult curios. To his credit, Tarantino hasn’t exactly been coy about this, acknowledging the debts he owes to Sergio Leone, Howard Hawks, Jack Hill, Kenji Misume, Shunya Ito and many, many others. What this patchwork, collage-style filmmaking leads to, however, is a body of work that lacks sincerity.

There’s always a sense of the hyper-real or meta with Tarantino. Though he frequently cameos in his films (including this one), the ego behind the camera is always present in the work itself. You can feel him prodding you to catch a reference, while his idiosyncratic dialogue sequences (of which there are many in Death Proof) are flat-out showboating, regardless of their degree of success. These are films made to enjoy, yes, but that also eagerly seek your approval. It’s like he’s watching over your shoulder the entire time.

Rare are the moments that feel free of this self-conscious yearn for validation. Rarer still, therefore, are moments of genuine emotional honesty.

Which brings us to Death Proof and The Smile.

Rosario Dawson plays Abernathy, whom we meet in the movie’s second half. The first half of the movie sets up the premise; Kurt Russell is a deranged stuntman who has fitted his car as a murder weapon, and he preys on young women. After the midway intermission with Michael and James Parks, we jump a year and meet a new set of ‘girls’. Abernathy is out shooting a movie in Lebanon, Tennessee with Lee (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and Kim (Tracie Thoms). They pick up stunt woman Zoe Bell (herself) from the airport and then, following a plan set out by Zoe in a virtuoso cafe conversation captured in a single take, dupe a local redneck into allowing them to take out his white Dodge Challenger for a test drive. This is all so that Zoe can drive a facsimile of the car from Vanishing Point(1971, Richard C Sarafian).

But there’s more. Zoe doesn’t just want to drive the car, she wants to perform a particularly crazy stunt. With belts strapped to each door, Zoe exits the car while Kim drives, climbing up onto the roof and then sliding herself gingerly onto the bonnet (or hood, if you’d prefer to remain culturally accurate). It’s a game she called ‘Ship’s Mast’. And it’ll become even deadlier when Kurt Russell’s Stuntman Mike catches up with them…

But before that happens, as Zoe begins the stunt, Tarantino captures magic.

Abernathy has already been chastised by the group for her sensibility. We’re made aware that she’s the only one of them who is a mother. True enough, the scenes we share with these women mark her out as something of a pragmatist. Lee – in her cheerleader outfit – is the child, Zoe and Kim are the tomboys… Abernathy is the grown-up. But as Zoe stretches out in front of the windscreen, Abernathy’s motherly concern breaks. Tarantino pushes in on her expression as Abernathy becomes wrapped up in the moment. She allows herself joy. She’s having fun. And Rosario Dawson breaks out a white-toothed smile that shines with the kind of simple, open honesty we don’t usually find in a Tarantino flick. It’s like seeing a bird let out of a cage.

There are precedents in his films for this, barely. The look on Robert Forster’s face at the end of Jackie Brown feels like the most naked moment of humanity in his work, but that’s a moment of realisation of a different stripe. That’s a portrait of a man acknowledging regret. Of knowing he’s let love walk out of his life. The smile in Death Proof has none of this ruefulness, none of the cynicism. It’s a moment of unbridled elation. Tarantino’s finest ‘no filter’ moment. Fleeting, gone in a moment, but wonderful. And, by extension, possibly the best thing he’s ever captured.

There’s more than one locked room to crack in Steve McQueen’s blistering new heist movie Widows. Viola Davis’ Veronica Rawlings is as tough a nut as we’ve yet encountered from this director, whose work has a thematic through-run of protagonists restricted by bonds, literal or psychological. Veronica gets both; backed into a corner while grieving her husband. It’s a superb performance from Davis – Veronica is a woman who has built a fortress around herself, emotionally – and being handed this seemingly impenetrable block of resilience feels like a tough ask straight out of the gate. But then, no one said this was going to be easy.

Widows is a dark bruise of a film, and in no way the departure for McQueen that it may have first appeared. The heist movie is not without its classics. The Asphalt Jungle. Rififi. Heat. As of late, however, it has more commonly become a playground for light capers (see Soberberg’s entries); an arena of modest comic relief even. A place of safety. The motivational driving force in recent years has been the thrill of the job itself. Of being good at being bad. A fantasy lifestyle dalliance. McQueen’s film isn’t that. Every major character in Widows is acting out of some form of necessity; to protect themselves; to survive. They are driven out of need, not want.

A gang of male thieves led by Liam Neeson’s Harry Rawlings are dead, killed in a van explosion in the aftermath of a bungled escape. Up in flames with them is $2 million belonging to Chicago street muscle Jamal Manning (Bryan Tyree Henry). Jamal is making a bid for political office to legitimise himself and obtain more power. A large part of his capital just went kaboom. He leans on Rawlings’ widow, Veronica, to make things right. She has two weeks.

A woman of intense mettle, Veronica isn’t about to let anyone else control her destiny. On discovering her husband’s heist bible – and the works for his next job – she decides to take it on, recruiting the widows of her late husband’s crew. She doesn’t want to chit-chat. She doesn’t want to make friends. Her new acquaintances are a means to an end; bullet points on an itinerary that must be completed.

McQueen has more time for them. Michelle Rodriguez plays Linda; a store owner and mother discovering that her husband’s debts have left her similarly cornered. Elizabeth Debicki, meanwhile, plays Alice; a pretty blonde beanpole loosed from an abusive relationship who has resorted to escort work to make ends meet. If Davis is a dependable force to be reckoned with, Debicki is the most joyous revelation, bringing depth and gumption to Alice, straddling a line between vulnerability and ingenuity.

Three need to be four, and that’s where fleet of foot hairdresser / babysitter Belle (Cynthia Erivo) comes into things. Erivo’s having quite a month. Having already been the best thing about the scattershot Bad Times At The El Royale, Widows is another feather in her cap, confirming that she is indeed a name to watch.

McQueen’s film achieves in two hours what David Simon and co would spend eight to twelve hours establishing on HBO; that is presenting not just a crime story, but wholly realising the context of the city it is taking place in. The modern-day Chicago of Widows is an unforgiving place, with corruption a multi-generational proposition wherever you turn. Adding further weight to the bulging credibility of the film’s cast are Colin Farrell and Robert Duvall as established political father and son Jack and Tom Mulligan. In Widows power runs in families. The social grouping of neighbourhoods and the privileges of class don’t delineate culpability.

Following such heavyweight hitters as Hunger, Shame and 12 Years A Slave, one would be forgiven for thinking that this would be a flimsier proposition, or even a case of McQueen testing the waters of director-for-hire Hollywood. That Widows is an adaptation of an 80’s ITV drama doesn’t help the case. But what McQueen has turned that into here is as formidable as anything he’s put his name to. If the intent was to try to legitimise a genre – the heist movie – that had fallen into disrepair, then the operation has been a success. Assisting him on screenwriting duties is Gillian Flynn of Gone Girl fame. McQueen’s super-serious tone is ever-present (again to the tipping point of self-parody), but Flynn injects some of her own narrative kineticism into the very blueprints of the film, which most often appears patchwork, zooming from one section of its sprawl to another. In that sense it does feel kindred to Michael Mann’s aforementioned Heat, and is as much about character and circumstance as it is action and violence.

McQueen and Flynn throw some literal soapboxing into the mix, edging for a state-of-the-nation address under Trump, while the all-girl gang of protectors and survivalists at the film’s core couldn’t have been timed better. Where Ocean’s Eight was an agreeable cupcake of a movie, Widows is a far sterner proposition, driven the entire time by a grievous fury. Perhaps it is a romp of another kind; a primal scream; catharsis for the shitkicked.

This one feels like a future classic, liable to get lost in the shuffle or taken for granted right now, but which will be looked back on in the years or decades to come as an integral title in both McQueen’s legacy, and of auteur cinema of the late 2010s. The tough-as-nails approach won’t make it an immediate crowd pleaser (it’s a shade too hard and cerebral for that), but film historians will look back on it as what it is; one of the truly great films of 2018.

In the third act of Paul Dano’s exceptional directorial debut Wildlife, the headlights of the Brinson family car illuminate a worn down fascia of an old building. It looks as though it might’ve once said ‘Davidson’ on it. Perhaps Harley? Clarity is gone. Lost in the smudges. Dano lingers here, with that sign in the murk of the night, and we feel the overlapping ages of things. How there isn’t a series of generations running after one another consecutively, but rather what a jumble everything is. All ages happening at once.

Wildlife is the story of a family in 1960. The Brinsons have recently arrived in Helena, Montana, and with smart economy Dano and partner Zoe Kazan’s screenplay makes us aware that this threesome have had a somewhat transient existence. Patriarch Jerry (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a kind man, working on the grounds of a golf club when we join him; though that career is short-lived. After being fired, he languishes, much to the displeasure of his wife Jeanette (Carey Mulligan). When he joins a down-and-out crew fighting dangerous forest fires – in a very real sense abandoning his family – Jeanette takes it even harder. She toughens, compartmentalises, and attracts the attention of an older local business owner, Warren Miller (Bill Camp).

All of this is witnessed through the eyes of 14-year-old Joe Brinson (Ed Oxenbould). Wide-eyed and wise beyond his years, he is the fulcrum of the story, and very few scenes take place without his presence. The lion’s share of Wildlife is from his perspective, making the piece feel like a memoir (it’s adapted from a novel by Richard Ford).

Dano was a noted actor in his youth, so it seems fitting that his first directorial effort should spotlight a similarly sensitive and gifted young star in the making. Oxenbould carries a great deal of water here, and Dano takes time to gauge the family crisis through his reactions. What he – and by extension we – are forced to witness is the demythologising of his parents.

In a very real sense Jerry and Jeanette are the children of the piece. After he is fired, Jerry regresses; shirking responsibility before running away from his problems. Jeanette, meanwhile, becomes evermore bratty, dresses as she did in her youth, and makes some decidedly circumspect parenting decisions. Her husband has acted out; why can’t she?

We’re perhaps more used to seeing husbands getting themselves entangled in affairs. Gyllenhaal’s look is even strongly reminiscent of Jon Hamm’s Don Draper on the weekends. Wildlife shows us a woman walking consciously into the same kind of trouble; reconnecting with a part of herself she had put in a drawer. As the structure requires for young Joe to be present for all meaningful encounters, this leads to a particularly uncomfortable and extended sequence in which the mother and son are invited to dinner with Mr. Miller. Joe is in effect forced to confront both his mother’s sexuality and her infidelity all at once. Innocence lost, indeed.

By the time the film builds to a dramatic climax, Joe’s role as parent to two grown children is complete. Even in the slightly awkward coda, it is up to him to herd his parents into place for a photograph. The child is father to the man. And woman.

Dano employs a deft, patient touch, locating a sensibility midway between Jeff Nichols and Todd Haynes, while the achingly giving landscapes throw in a dash of Kelly Reichardt. Reichardt is certainly felt in the leisurely pacing; though it is all in service of crafting rich and complex characters..

It helps that Mulligan and Gyllenhaal deliver career best performances. Given both of their catalogues, that’s quite a statement, but it’s warranted. Mulligan particularly grabs the role of Jeanette by the throat, and few who see Wildlife will be surprised when her name appears on many nomination lists in the coming awards season. Dano’s film will most keenly be remembered for Oxenbould, however. Remember, you saw him here first.

If, that is, you see Wildlife, which you must, if you can. Arriving here in the UK on the 9th November on a limited run in select cinemas, this is one to actively keep an eye out for, to work your schedule around.

It isn’t an easy watch. While Dano has a gift for a beautifully measured frame, he’s unafraid to fill it with utterly transfixing heartache. There’s very little score present in the film, giving it the same intimate, hushed awe as the very best moments of The Wire. Except here the war is at home, and its made up of many battles. Some are loud, but most are quiet as a whisper.

Gus Van Sant’s Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far On Foot marks the third time that Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara have worked together, following Spike Jonze’s Her and Garth Davis’ Mary Magdalene. Both actors are among the most vibrant, watchable and interesting presences in Hollywood today, and any film which features either of their names promises to be at least worthy of investigation.

Her was a little bit magical. Mary Magdalene was… quite beige. Where does Van Sant’s film land on this A-lister life line, especially considering his recent quality fluctuations? Where do we draw our ‘X’?

Phoenix plays John Callahan, the alcoholic cartoonist who was paralysed in a car accident and worked his way toward sobriety over the course of six years, with the aid of his girlfriend/nurse Annu (Mara). The story zigzags in time, also capturing Callahan pre-accident, always chasing a bottle. In light of the need for this before/after contrast, Van Sant is taken off the hook for casting an actor with fully functioning limbs (a recurrent hot topic in terms of representation). Indeed, Don’t Worry does pointedly feature some disabled actors. Yet still, Phoenix seems like an unusual choice given that Callahan was in his twenties during this time period.

Nevertheless, Phoenix makes the part his own, even beneath a distracting ginger wig. With his loud shirts and happy-go-lucky spirit, the pre-crash scenes echo his work for Paul Thomas Anderson in Inherent Vice. Those that follow – and more specifically those that also introduce Mara’s Swedish nurse – find him more subdued.

Mara feels curiously other in the picture; a too-perfect pixie-like beauty. On first appearance, you’d be forgiven for wondering if she’s merely a product of John’s addled imagination, like the acrobats he sees out his hospital window.

Also present (and playing very well against type) is Jonah Hill as Donnie; hippie leader of the AA meetings John starts attending. Hill (whose own directorial effort Mid90s is forthcoming) is perhaps this film’s best surprise, gifting us a character of unexpected sincerity. The supporting cast is also pocked with quirky choices that pay off, from forever-curio Udo Kier to some of Van Sant’s musician friends; Beth Ditto and Kim Gordon.

In the early days of the film’s inception, Robin Williams was mooted to star (a further age gap). His name and sensibility might explain why Van Sant’s finished film carries a degree of saccharine more commonly associated with Williams; as though an echo of his spirit was carried right through to post-production. It’s there in Danny Elfman’s whimsical, sentimental score, or the relative breeziness of tone throughout.

“I know three things about my real mother,” John says in the film several times, “She was Irish American, she had red hair, she was a schoolteacher. Oh yeah, she didn’t want me. So, four things.”

We see these words performed for different audiences and for different reasons. In the main, John uses this joke as a self-deprecating method of selling himself; selling his sense of humour; painting himself as charismatic (he is). The outlier is how he says it in AA. The tone is different. Less guarded. In the edit, Van Sant has these contrasting deliveries slam up against one another. It asks us to consider the facades we paint; the versions of ourselves we make, and our motives in the process.

Mixing up time has another wider-reaching effect. The sense of journey from one state to another is scrambled, nullified. Not only does it make for a more engaging, patchwork experience, it underscores the old truism of addiction as an illness; something lived with, existing in a state of fluctuating permanence.

Four years on from his superb portrait of the life of Mr Turner, Mike Leigh returns with another artful depiction of British life in the early 19th century, presenting us an epic study of civil disobedience and underhand parliamentary clout.

On August 16th 1819, a democratic march culminated in St Peter’s Field, Manchester, where venerated public speaker Henry Hunt (Rory Kinnear) addressed the crowd on the subject of reform following the government’s increasingly unpopular austerity measures. The peaceful gathering was then set upon by armed troops on horseback corralled by alarmed and vindictive members of parliament. Scores were injured and more than a few killed. The incident – a massacre – was dubbed Peterloo by the press.

Prestige British period pieces are ten-a-penny and are often neutered by the stranglehold of blustery melodrama or the smothering sensation of being little more than bait for little gold statues. Leigh has proven himself adept at sidestepping such encumberments, and so it goes again here. In a mode similar to that of Terence Davies, Leigh strives for an authenticity that seems indifferent to outside approval (though frequently obtains it). His is a calmer, more studied approach, and stretches of Peterloo have the feel of considered reconstruction rather than haughty dramatisation.

Though his characters are themselves often filled with bluster (large swathes of the film are given over to impassioned speechifying), Leigh seems just as interested in the metronomic tick of the time period, the pulse of its people. So we spend time with band members practising on the moors, or else the camera appears distracted by the (admittedly fascinating) workings of mechanical looms in the factories, or the manual apparatus of a printing press.

Leigh has also established himself as a director able to depict residents of our northern counties without descending into crude caricature. Many of those depicted in Peterloo live in uncomfortable poverty, but the film doesn’t make unnecessary hay out of such circumstances, and the trope of the ‘comedic peasant’ is barely evidenced. His people are driven and articulate. Only once does the picture descend marginally into Loach-style salt-o’-the-earth sentimentality (over the literal breaking of bread).

A majority of the running time is given over to investigating how a grassroots movement would swell in an age long before our more instantaneous methods of communication. Yet, while 200 years may have passed, Peterloo feels remarkably prescient. In the age of Trump and Brexit, we are living in a time of protest and division. The main difference here is that these were physical meetings, lending them greater cinematic depth than a heated Facebook comments section or Reddit thread. It’ll be interesting to see how future cinematic historians dramatise those.

This is an ensemble piece that leisurely builds toward one fatal day and is not beholden to a sense of impending doom or the suspense of coming bloodshed. This isn’t 13 Assassins in the north of England, and shouldn’t be approached as such. When the riot does break (a little way into the film’s third hour), Leigh captures it with a suitable sense of chaos and disorder. It’s all hats, hooves and dust. Gratuity isn’t a concern either; despite the brutality, the sequence is relatively bloodless and the film has secured itself a 12A certificate as a result. Nevertheless, the point is made.

And yet, it feels like something is lacking, something keeping Peterloo from greatness. The timeliness of Leigh’s warning is on point; performances and production values are at a peak, and Dick Pope’s photography and lighting are absolutely impeccable. Still, there comes a feeling of “Is that it?” Perhaps the film closes too abruptly and might’ve fared better had the aftermath been investigated as thoroughly as the organisation?

Perhaps the sense of disappointment really comes from recognising that, despite the controversy stirred up by these events at the time, we’ve seemingly learned little from them…

With Halloween fast approaching I, like many others, have upped the horror quota in my viewing habits, revisiting prominent titles as well as exploring far-flung classics. It’s taken too long for me to reach back to Jacques Tourneur’s Night Of The Demon (aka Curse Of The Demon). Already a firm fan of Tourneur’s earlier Val Lewton produced Cat People, crossing this title off my spooky bucket list has been an achievement made all the easier thanks to Powerhouse Films’ superb deluxe re-release under their Indicator imprint.

The film is a sure-footed five-star classic. In the main it finds professional debunker John Holden (Dana Andrews) investigating the death of his colleague Professor Harrington (Maurice Denham); electrocuted under bizarre circumstances on the very day his demise was predicted. To Holden the truth is a mystery but we, the audience, are given the information he seeks from the off. The film opens with Professor Harrington’s demise. It is one of the most impactful beginnings to any horror film I can recall seeing, despite what would seem like considerable limitations.

Harrington is pursued by a gigantic demon, summoned by Niall MacGinnis’ deliciously Machiavellian cult leader Doctor Karswell. After a portentous narrated opening over images of a henge – prefiguring the occult leanings of what follows – we leap straight into action. Propelled by Clifton Parker’s fanciful, even histrionic score, we join Harrington as he drives through the woods at night.

These short, fast-paced scenes of night driving are supremely atmospheric. With the urgency of Parker’s music crashing on the soundtrack, the trees flash by the camera like gigantic bones, stark white obstacles dodged against the terrible black of night. The monochrome photography is supremely effective, hurtling us back in time to an older horror sensibility, but imbued with the same danger as the stronger sections of, say, The Blair Witch Project. Tourneur plays on one of our simplest, most primal fears; the dark.

Having pleaded urgently with Karswell to no avail, Harrington returns to driving in the dreaded night. Returning home, he turns to see a plume of smoke developing in the night sky. It grows larger. Nearer. The demon is manifesting. Crashing his car into a telephone pole, he is killed by the cables.

By today’s standards the beast conjured (pictured above) is somewhat crude, even (under other circumstances) laughable. Very clearly a puppet (and a silly one at that) whose presence is achieved with superimposition and stop motion effects. Our cerebral reasoning should dismiss it.

And yet the economic build up that precedes its manifestation – those frantic scenes of night driving in particular – allows for a strange magic. There’s an alchemy at work here, similar to that being worked by the nefarious Karswell. If you give yourself over to the world of terror Tourneur has been quickly setting up for you, if you immerse yourself in it and suspend disbelief, then the demon becomes one of horror cinema’s most beguiling contradictions; an effect you recognise and rationalise that still comes at you with the power to shock.

That is, in itself, the magic of old horror, where effects have dated and yet their use still carries weight. It is our ability and willingness to indulge in the make belief, to channel our childhood imaginations, that enables horror masters to get our flesh crawling. We are absolutely complicit in the frights we feel. We signed on and bought the ticket, after all. We said, “yes” when someone offered to scare us. Our imaginations are part of the trick.

Tourneur knows this (remember the bus scene in Cat People?). How else does he manage to get away with this film’s silliest sequence; the one in which Holden is menaced by a housecat-turned-leopard. Dana Andrews thrashes about the set with, quite clearly, a cuddly toy. The result is less effective than the appearance of the demon, though the principal behind the execution of the scene is the same.

A large part of Night Of The Demon is procedural. The demon doesn’t make another grand appearance until the film’s conclusion at a train station (though again the effect is pronounced). These crazy brackets contain a film of many, many small marvels. I love the in-flight scene that sets up a kind of meet-cute between Holden and Harrington’s niece Joanna (Peggy Cummins), while a picnic sequence in which Karswell – dressed as a clown no less – conjures a storm will linger long in the mind. So, too, will the menacing hand of a figure following Holden down a gothic staircase before all that daft leopard business.

But when the film comes into conversation or otherwise manages to surface itself in the mind, it is that opening with the improbable demon that will leap first.

A boy walks into a house. It’s not his house. He’s intruding. But its an intrusion out of both curiosity and necessity. The house looks wrong. Just plain wrong. Dark, dank and grimly decorated. A set of dark stairs press on the right hand side of the frame, hemming the boy down a hallway that leads to a horrible looking room. Said room has a wall cluttered with trophies; animal skulls and other things too small and obscure in the shot to identify. And they’re set against an angry red paint job. It looks like hell in a box room. The boy steps up a small ramp into the room. Before we can process it, a huge, hulking figure in some kind of dreaded skin mask and a filthy apron steps into his path, gigantic like an eclipse. The boy is hit on the head with a hammer by this monster and he falls fast. Dead-weight. His leg kicks. The giant drags him over the threshold and slams an abattoir door across, shutting us out with a slam.

As much as this overwhelming flood of quick information is almost too much to process, it’s the sound of the hammer hitting the boy that doesn’t escape me, and it replays over and over in my head as I lay in bed, trying to shake off what I’ve seen. But it’s looped, and I can’t help but get stuck in a waking nightmare of repetition. And I feel afraid.

*

I came late to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. By the time I saw it, I’d experienced a lot of the big titles that horror has to offer. I’d faced Michael, Jason and Freddie. I’d fallen in love with the alien. I’d stayed at the Overlook Hotel time and again. But where those adventures were exactly that – adventures – Tobe Hooper’s trip to darkest Texas chilled me to the bone. Finally, I’d found a horror film that genuinely disturbed me. That did what all the others promised, but never quite delivered. I couldn’t sleep after watching it and I was surprised at myself for my weakness. And over and over in my head was that image of the boy getting hit and falling dead-weight.

Thud. SLAM. Thud. SLAM…

I can’t say that I love Hooper’s film, but I recognise its power over me and, were I to review it conventionally, I’d slap five stars on it. Not out of love, but out of begrudging respect that’s closest to awe. It’s not my favourite horror film of all time, but if asked for the most effective, this would be my answer.

There’s barely any bloodshed in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. That’s what surprises people the most. Like the head in the box in Se7en, you tell people that the gore is never really on-screen and they disagree with you. They remember it. But it’s not there.

Such is the power of the film. Unlike anything else I’ve come across, Hooper made a film that feels – from the very beginning – like death. Following a thick and pulpy spoken-word intro there are only disquieting sounds. Digging? Something unearthed? Then flashes. Lightbulbs? A camera. Rotten remains. Gooey. All glimpsed. All received in fragments. Then the ‘work of art’ at sunset. An apocalypse scene in a graveyard.

The titles, which follow, are like getting drowned in a volcano. A harrowing atonal score and a continuing radio news report converge as we are left to guess what we’re seeing. Solar flares? The very contents of hell? And then a fade through to a dead, upturned armadillo. As opening go, few horror films can match the dread and mystery of Hooper’s abstract start.

The low-budget verite style of Hooper’s shooting is ten-a-penny in 70’s genre cinema, but he has a way of making his ugly frames feel considered, even beautiful. It’s a thick aesthetic, syrupy like Texas BBQ sauce. Sun scorched, grainy, thoroughly convincing. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is the benchmark of artful ugliness; relentlessly copied, never matched.

Hooper quit eating meat while filming; his nightmare movie turning him vegetarian. It’s something many have reported from watching the thing, in which a bunch of innocent – if entitled – teens are offed by a family of backwoods cannibals. They’re treated like cattle. Leatherface’s sledgehammer execution of Kirk (William Vail) described above… the way Pam (Teri McMinn) is placed on that hook… The Texas Chain Saw Massacre uncomfortably reminds us of the horrors of the slaughterhouse, subliminally asking us to confront the misery we put animals through to bring them to the dinner plate.

Hooper never lets his audience get comfortable. Sally’s brother Franklin (Paul A. Partian) is designed to get on our nerves. He’s a whiny, awkward presence; cumbersome in his wheelchair. Again, Hooper makes us remonstrate with ourselves for our thoughts. We want Franklin to suffer. We’re culpable. Then there’s the film’s shrill final act. That extended family dinner sequence; all screams and laughter, shredding our nerves… Not to mention the mother of all slasher movie chase sequences… The relentless roar of the chainsaw motor…

Even now, years later, having seen the film three or four more times and having bought the blu ray, I have to psyche myself into watch it (it’s on in the background as I write this and perhaps these words themselves are an act of cowardice; a way of shielding myself from the movie). I have to make peace that I’m going to put myself through the wringer again. Only a handful of films require this mustering of courage (Irreversible, the Japanese Ju-On: The Grudge and Martyrs spring to mind as others).

I know some people who find the film corny, even cheesy (and not headcheesy). That’s fine. No movie is the same to all comers. Everyone has their own experience. But even for all its deliberate aesthetic choices and extreme design motifs, there’s something about The Texas Chain Saw Massacre that feels terrifyingly real to me. I buy it. I’m in it completely. Getting through it is my own personal gauntlet. Making it out feels like earned victory.

Having been wooed by the exceptionally well assembled trailer, I snapped up a chance to partake in An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn without doing any research. It was only in the ensuing week that a dread chill presented itself. This goofy-looking comedy starring Aubrey Plaza and Jemaine Clement was from Jim Hosking, the ‘visionary’ behind The Greasy Strangler; a film which, if you check the hyperlink just there, you’ll discover I hated.

Uh-oh.

But even more-so than horror, comedy is the most fickle and subjective of genres. One man’s pleasure is another man’s poison etc. An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn is made up of a lot of the same ingredients as The Greasy Strangler. Kooky absurdism, infantile toilet humour, non-sequitors, repetitious swearing, circular conversations that lead nowhere… all accompanied by a plinky-plonky ever-squelchy accompaniment from composer Andrew Hung, whose scores for Hosking conjure daydreams of a party in a marshmallow factory.

But though the ingredients are familiar, the mix has been refined and, perhaps importantly, some new elements have been added to the blend… stars.

The aforementioned Plaza takes the lead as Lulu Danger, a bored housewife eager for an adventure away from lowlife fast-food restaurant manager Shane (Emile Hirsch). When Shane steals her brother’s cashbox, Lula double crosses him and absconds with it and a stranger named Colin (Jemaine Clement). Their destination? The Moorhouse Hotel for a cryptically anticipated evening with, yes, Beverly Luff Linn (Craig Robertson). Also (ever) present is Luff Linn’s plutonic life partner, Rodney von Donkensteiger (Matt Berry). With crisscrossing hints of romance in the air, the stage is set for a particularly bizarre love… pentangle.

The above names bring a cache of credence to Hosking’s film, but they also bring significant experience, and the results are far more readily digested than those the director arranged previously. The supporting cast is still peppered with ‘unconventional’ faces and body shapes (a cadre that appear as though loosed from a Tim & Eric special), but the main players offer reassurance and confidence in equal measure. Deadpan deliveries are the order of the day, of course. Plaza and Clement are in their element, naturally, while Robertson’s titular character makes only constricted grunts and wheezes for the majority of the film.

The outlier is Emile Hirsch. Experienced, yes, but not necessarily in this kind of farcical fare. Credit to him; he gives it his all, though it’s often a little too much. Granted, that may be the point, but he does seem to be genuinely exerting himself whenever he’s on camera.

There’s a “let’s go for it” spirit that makes the strangeness easier to swallow. And Hosking – evidencing some level of ambition – is savvy enough to tone down the ‘ick’ factor to accommodate a wider audience. Some might see this as softening his edge. Personally, his was an edge that could withstand softening. The upshot is that the grossness and misogyny has been shorn away (if not wholly removed) for a brand of humour that’s more playfully weird.

There’s been a creative change-up, too. Perhaps Hosking’s writing partner for Luff Linn, David Wike, deserves some credit for the more palpable approach this time out? The film even has a small semblance of a structure.

But fear not, Luff Linn still carries the same sense of a couple of writers amusing themselves first and foremost and seemingly asking – without always knowing – “so what happens next?”. Running to nearly two hours, if you’re not taken by it, it’s going to seem awfully long. But for all its many dalliances there’s more of a suggestion this time out that the basic shape of the thing was actually planned.

That’s a cheap shot and a disservice to Hosking, who has ensured that his picture looks terrific. His crew has done him well, particularly where creative design is required. There’s a cosy glow and retro sheen to Luff Linn; not to mention an affinity for small, provincial hotels that haven’t quite made it out of the 70’s yet.

A key ingredient that I found sorely lacking last time (but which I found in abundance here) is this kitschy charm. Not all of the humour works all of the time, but the stuff that does stores up a lot of goodwill that gets you through the misfires. And there are a scattering of gems to be found, not least of which is the payoff to the film’s tantalising question; what constitutes an evening with Beverly Luff Linn?

In one of the (many) intros to the film recorded for its limited theatrical release, David Wike affirms that An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn has no message. This is pretty clear anyway, but it’s reassuring to save myself the agony of trying to comprehend one. It is meant, simply, to be fun.

There’s a tendency to diminish the importance of fun; that comedy is a low-stakes game. The reality is that it is always, always a high-wire act, and you can plummet at any moment. A memorable comedy film is a job well done.

I still question whether Hosking really has an affinity for the oddballs he populates his films with, or whether he much prefers laughing at them. But regardless of whether you love what he makes or loathe it – or switch from one to the other and back again – the cinematic landscape is better off for having people like him doing pratfalls in the margins, mixing it up.

I didn’t like The Greasy Strangler but I really quite liked An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn. Take from that whatever you like; there’s no message here.